Re: [ATM] mirror or lens?

[clnoble@email.arizona.edu]

Mike,

When optical engineers do ray traces on optical systems, many just consider a
mirror to be a lens with a negative index of refraction, so that when light
hits it, it goes the opposite way from which it came.  This may be what he was
referring to, but it does not mean a lens is neccesarily a mirror.

Colton
Tucson, AZ


Quoting Mike Shuken <mikeshuken@value.net>:

> Hello,
>
> I was at a family lunch the other day and I was telling the folks about a
> reflector telescope that my son and I just built.  Most of the family is
> from a non-technical background, and one of them asked "How big is the lens?"
>
> I said, "Well, it's not really a lens, it's a series of two mirrors, and
> the eye piece is really the only *lens* in the telescope."
>
> And one of the family members said, "A mirror is still a lens."  And he's
> an astrophysicist, and who really wants to argue with an
> astrophysicist?  So I didn't knwo what to say.
>
> Anyway, I always thought that a mirror wasn't a lens, a lens was something
> that light passed through and was changed, vs. a mirror that changed the
> light by reflected it.
>
> Any thoughts on weather a mirror is a lens?
>
> Best,
>
> Mike
>
>
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